State Street, that great street

Lost in the hoopla over Columbia Development Cos. plans to begin work on a massive new office tower on State Street was Mayor Jerry Jennings’ concurrent announcement that the city will spend $5 million of state grant money on beautification of the street.

Exactly how the money will be spent still seems a bit fuzzy, but a spokesman for the mayor said the city is looking at ways to improve how both pedestrian and car traffic navigate the broad roadway.

Jennings, when making the announcement, said the money will help make the downtown street an impressive gateway to the city, as it had been in years gone by.

Perhaps the street can even return to the grandeur that led crooner Frank Sinatra to declare it “that great street” where “they do things that they don’t do on Broadway.”

What? You don’t think he was singing about Albany?

Chris Churchill

One Response

Face it, ALbany is a dump, always has and always will be. It doesn’t have to be that way, but the retards in power don’t seem to understand basic economics. Its the price silly and its about proximity to major metropolitan centers. If you really want to turn Albany around, get a bullet train going from Manhattan to ALbany and Albany to Boston, one hr to each city. Doing so will make living in Albany attractive due to the fact that you can own a home for under 300,000. Once you get the people moving up here, then think about ways to make State street better. I would propose cutting off all traffic to state and pearl and making it a mall of sorts kind of like downtown crossings in Boston.